Posts Tagged Giro Xar

The first thing that showed up on my doorstep unexpectedly was a Giro Xar MTB Helmet. And, actually, it didn’t even show up on my current doorstep, but my old doorstep which I just happened to ride my bike by one afternoon. So, I unpacked the helmet and clipped it to my bag and rode home wearing two helmets.

Twice as safe, right?

The Xar is a fairly low profile mountain bike helmet…wait, before I get started on the review proper, let me say a couple of things.

1) I don’t own a mountain bike anymore. This is probably because the last time I rode single-track I crashed 6 or 8 times and spent the entire time cursing Kurt (silently in my head) for convincing me that mountain biking would be a good idea.

2) Second only to guys that tool around at 25 kh on TT bikes, making fun of roadies in MTB helmets is about my favorite pastime.

Now that we have that confession out of the way. I put on the Xar for a few weeks of commuting – careful to make fun of myself in the mirror – and gave it a go. Before I even started, I told myself not to compare this $135 mountain bike helmet to my Ionos which cost nearly twice as much and, incidentally, is nearly twice the size.

It turns out the mental prep was unnecessary. Sure, there were some things I didn’t like as much – it has a bill – but mostly the Xar is a comfortable helmet that breathes well and looks pretty ok. The Xar has 17 vents and, according to the Giro website “optimized internal channeling” – even my wife, who has hijacked the Xar as her regular helmet and has only just started cycling after a 3 year break, noticed how well it the air flows over the head.

Uh…this is the point where I might say something to balance out the review a little and make sure y’all don’t think I’m being real real nice to Giro so they might send me an Aeon in exchange for my kind words, but honestly, my only complaint about the Xar is that it wasn’t a road helmet – it had a bill. Which is to say, I don’t like it as much as my Ionos (which, incidentally, I don’t like as much as my Atmos).

In short, if you’re going to hop on your road bike and head out to climb mountains or work in a pace line with your mates or wear a matching pro-team kit, the Xar is not your helmet. But if you’re a commuter or a mountain biker who is looking for a fairly lightweight, breathable helmet with a built in bill, you could do a whole lot worse than the Xar.